Thank Eje...looks like I had best enable PPPoE. Don't think I can utilize tunneling or compression though. Cause my little 1-port routers will be doing the PPPoE, not the individual PCs behind it.
Sully -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eje Gustafsson Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 7:27 PM To: The Wirefree Network Subject: Re: [smartBridges] Why use PPPoE?? TWN> This is slightly OT... TWN> FIRST...a little background: TWN> I have a pure sB wireless network. ALL of my clients are connected TWN> via an airBridge or airPoint. I obviously do not provide any TWN> information about our network to my clients, nor do they have admin TWN> rights to the sB device. Therefore, the network is pretty locked TWN> down...which does not allow clients to sniff wireless traffic TWN> (without first cracking WEP) because they can NOT put the sB device TWN> into promiscuous mode. TWN> I will NEVER have the need to allow non-paying customers to access TWN> my network either (hotspot webpage login). TWN> I currently use WEP and MAC internal authentication (although I TWN> will soon move to external RADIUS). TWN> I deploy SOHO routers at EVERY client home which is located between TWN> the sB device and the client internal network. I assign static IPs TWN> to EVERY sB device and client router. Therefore, there are only 2 TWN> IPs seen from any one of my clients (sB device and router). TWN> My SOHO router that I deploy at EVERY client has web based admin TWN> authorized from ONLY my NOC IP addresses. This allows me to not TWN> only manage all the devices remotely, but it also allows me to PING TWN> the internal network (beyond the sB device) to prove that the sB TWN> device is passing traffic to the wired LAN. Piece of mind for me. TWN> The SOHO routers have built-in PPPoE that I "could" enable if I TWN> want to. TWN> My question is this....Why should "I" use PPPoE for "THIS" network? Additional security. TWN> 1. Does it provide more security? (not really, I think) Absolutely. TWN> 2. Or would the only reason be for bandwidth limiting (which I TWN> currently can not do)? That to. TWN> I do NEEEEEED bandwidth limiting, but the new XO radios will do TWN> this. So...really...does the use of PPPoE provide any greater level TWN> of security? Yes Sir sure does. TWN> If someone manages to crack my WEP, then sniff someone's IP and TWN> MAC, then bumps that client off the network and assumes their TWN> identity, would PPPoE stop them from surfing? Who would really TWN> care at that point?? Cracking your WEP ain't to hard. Sniffing someone's IP and MAC isn't that hard either... Now to the killer they don't need to bump the client of the network to assume their identity. They could simply just assume their identity and surf away with piece in mind. As long as the client can't hear the thiefs radio then their router will not complain about duplicate ip on the network it just assumes the traffic that was sent to the ip/mac combo was someone attempting to communicate with them and simply ignore it while the thief also will get the traffic which is to him legit. The thief will be surfing away stealing your service and you would NEVER know about it. PPPoE if their login have not been authorized they don't get an IP and can not surf. Since you no longer is passing TCP traffic but PPPoE traffic you have to have a special software to create the pppoe tunnel. When you run PPPoE you don't even need to have a IP assign on your routers ethernet interface that is to your clients because it's all done over pppoe. TWN> Does PPPoE use encrypted LOGIN? Yes Sir. Encrypted logins so they have to capture the PPPoE login frames and then be able to crack the username and password out of those frames (pretty much impossible since it's done on a handshake basis and the password is not reverse decryptable). Also depending on the client and server you can even create a encrypted pppoe tunnel so not only the login frames are encoded but ALL traffic is encrypted as well.. Plus you can turn on compression as well and you can compress the traffic between the clients and the server. Save you some bandwidth there.. TWN> I just don't see the need right now.....any advice would be greatly TWN> appreciated? You could probably get away by doing what your doing without any problems. But who knows you might not and the problem is that you will almost NEVER be able to tell for sure if you been hacked. Only way to tell is if you KNOW that a certain radio is offline and yet the client is sending data OR your trying to manage a radio and sometimes you have problem getting into the unit. Say if the hacker is using a different brand of radio and you try to us SimpleMonitor on your clients radio the hackers radio don't understand simplemonitor and when you try to connect it might tell you failure to connect IF the hackers radio responded first. But if the clients radio respond first then you get your info. Also if you look in the association list you might see that the remote client identifies as say a DLINK instead of a smartbridges radio but that is not a guarantee that you will see that (ones again depends on what radio was fastest in their reply). When you run pppoe you can set "only-one" just like on dailup so if user A have successfully logged in he has to logoff before someone else can login with user A's username and password. This way IF the hacker get hold of it as long as user A is online the hacker can't use it. If hacker get online then user A can't get online but then hey he will call complain and you will take a look and see that he is already online. You kick the user offline and he can get online then somewhat later he calls again complain. Now you kick him offline but ask him to turn of his radio and you see him getting back online even though his radio is off.. HACKER ALERT!!! Time to change that users password... Best regards, Eje Gustafsson mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- The Family Entertainment Network http://www.fament.com Phone : 620-231-7777 Fax : 620-231-4066 eBay UserID : macahan - Your Full Time Professionals - -- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] ----------ANNOUNCEMENT---------- Don't forget to register for WISPCON IV http://www.wispcon.info/us/wispcon-iv/wispcon-iv.htm The PART-15.ORG smartBridges Discussion List To Join: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (in the body type subscribe smartBridges <yournickname> To Remove: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (in the body type unsubscribe smartBridges) Archives: http://archives.part-15.org ----------ANNOUNCEMENT---------- Don't forget to register for WISPCON IV http://www.wispcon.info/us/wispcon-iv/wispcon-iv.htm The PART-15.ORG smartBridges Discussion List To Join: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (in the body type subscribe smartBridges <yournickname> To Remove: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (in the body type unsubscribe smartBridges) Archives: http://archives.part-15.org
